


Nighttime on the Spirit Train

by InfinityIllusion



Category: Bleach, Spirited Away
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3819757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinityIllusion/pseuds/InfinityIllusion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who is the conductor of the Spirit Train that Sen boards? What are her fellow passengers?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

 **Summary:**  Who is the conductor of the Spirit Train that Sen boards? What are her fellow passengers?

* * *

 

 **Background:** Basically, this story is how I thought Bleach would overlap with Spirited Away if Memories of Nobody happened and Aizen was also defeated.  There has to be some overlap between the worlds of Spirits and Yōkai, if they aren’t the same world.  This is also my explanation as to what the shadows that Sen sees are.  Apparently weird things happen when you mix City of New Orleans by Arlo Guthrie and World of Midnight by Minako Obata, from Black Lagoon.

 **Disclaimer:** I don’t own either Bleach or Spirited Away; rights go to Tite Kubo and Hayao Miyazaki. No infringement was intended, no money is being made off this work.  I own the plot and any similarities, which I don’t know of at this point in time, are completely unintentional.

* * *

 

It’s been a while since he’s seen a real human. A person, not just humanoid (not that he has anything against such people – he’d be a hypocrite if he did), but in birth and nature and not somehow related to the world of spirits, yōkai (1), and gods.  The last ones that were still living in the sense of “having to draw a breath and having blood pumping through their veins” were those two twins, something or another - ba, who had brought the memories of his sisters to mind.  Of course, that was years ago, and they’ve rarely ridden the train since (neither has a reason to – since he’d ferried the older one to her bathhouse for good).

He guesses it’s a good thing that he’s able to still feel surprise.  It’s been too long.  Too long alone, though his spirits are a comfort and prevent him from going completely mad. Too long since he last felt the Air, free from containment of any kind.  Too long since he’s last smelled the cherry blossoms…  Too long since he’s last felt comfort.

He can agree with Zangetsu and the dumb Sekkokuboku (2) he’s been stuck with for years about the time spent imprisoned by this World. The long-felt irritation between his “twin” and he can’t even break the apathy that’s wrapped around him like the malicious strands of a spider-web.  Ironic, since the only spider he knows has been trying to get him out of the business for years.

Zangetsu is the one who has the honor of collecting the tickets from those who need them. He doesn’t need to speak and the dark shadows that obscure his face from the living allows him to have what necessary contact he needs, even if he looks stupid in the uniform, particularly the hat. No one can tell anyways. Even if they could, those who’d cared are gone to the three spirits.

Shiro is the lookout today. The breeze produced by the train at least gives the illusion of freedom – something the spirit has never truly known.  He can’t blame his twin. He’s not sure he’s even known freedom either, but at least now he’s seemingly in control of where he’s going.

They settle, the girl and her entourage (really, a Nopperabo (3), a midget bird, and a chubby hamster/mouse are her companions to see a feared witch? Not that he has room to talk as Shiro reminds him through their weird telepathic-parallel link. At least they aren’t trying to invade a hostile society with limited training and a cat.  Although, given the atmosphere around the group, he’s inclined to believe that it isn’t such a different situation). Zangetsu, content to disappear again after having communicated the requisite stop with the push of a button, settles onto his favorite pole in a world of three.

He starts the train again, letting it glide over the tracks, which are really just for display.

 

~IiI~

 

It’s entertaining to see the girl’s reactions to her fellow passengers.  He’s sure she isn’t aware of the exact nature of the train’s usual “patrons.” The stops wouldn’t help her realize it, either.  Perhaps that’s for the best.

Shiro starts to whistle. Why he’s going on about the City of New Orleans, he isn’t sure.  But most of what Shiro does still doesn’t make sense to him.  The reverse is true as well.

 

~IiI~

 

He’s still not sure how he landed the job. When the Soul Society had explained the concept of Senna as a conglomerate of memories (regardless of the fact that the only real thing he remembered about her was the way she liked hair ribbons), he’d been pissed to learn that the entire episode could have been avoided. So, like the idiot he was, he’d opened his mouth to give a suggestion.  Somehow, people took his suggestion to mean that he was the one who should implement it – take responsibility and all that jazz.

So, maybe he did know how he ended up in this position, transporting memories to lands where they would thrive until they finally faded away.  Even memories die.

It might have helped him “receive” his position as the conductor of the Spirit Train that he was so powerful, too powerful. In fact, as much as his younger self would be horrified to see his current apathy, driving a train beat languishing in prison, rotting in the lowest cells of the Maggot’s Nest. Being considered a loose cannon did have its downsides.

There was a reason there are no other Shinigami (4) in this World and it isn’t just about his power level (he ignores the whispers that point out that it **is** about his power, just not the one that everyone thinks of at first; he ignores the whispers that say how his once-famous strength has failed him). Not that Central 46 would have allowed them to come.  Not that he’d ever tell them where he was.  Not even the lonely weeping cherry.

 

~IiI~

 

Slowly the sun moves across the sky, simultaneously darkening the shades that surround his living passenger and hiding them further in the Dark.  They see her Light.  They know that they cannot stand its presence, fractured as they are, so they retreat even as they yearn for a similar light.  No memory wants to die.

 

~IiI~

 

Swamp Bottom is the last stop that he makes, the girl nodding off along with the bird and hamster leaving the Nopperabo to stand guard.  That creature at least has seen enough of the world to know that even though there are few dangers to the girl on the train, those dangers still exist. He’s comforted by the knowledge that someone in that group isn’t going in blind.

The train stop appears in the distance, and loath as he is to wake them, he presses the button to engage the recoded message.  The Nopperabo gently nudges the girl, waking her, and indicates the approaching stop. Yawning slightly, the girl nods and gently pokes her two smaller companions.  They wake and move to ride on her shoulder.

He pulls alongside the dirt path, marked by the Lantern (5), releases the doors, and leaves the girl to face the old, likely bitter, woman who once rode “his” train with such joy. Some vague remnant from a half remembered Grammar or Literature class conjures itself with the explanation that if this was a story, the trek and confrontation that will occur would be the Katabasis, or something like it.  It tests if the heroine is strong enough to truly succeed, the test that may very well be the quest itself.  He shakes his head, dispelling the memories, and, just for the sake of the remaining curiosity his heart holds, allows some of his power to slip free.

Searching, remembering the feeling of the strands of fabric that indicate a person’s power, he reaches out with invisible hands, guided by equally invisible eyes. There in the darkness he sees, among the oddly colored strips of her companions, a pure white ribbon with just the hint of silver as it waves in the non-existent wind.

He smiles to himself and the clouds break a bit in the world of three, confident that the shimmer he caught a glimpse of would be sufficient to sway the old woman. Silver, after all, meant a change in path and purification, among the many meanings it held.

It was the color that once reflected the light when he saw his own spirit ribbon all those years ago.

* * *

I hope you liked this.  Part two shall be posted shortly.

Please leave a review?

 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

**Summary:**  Who is the conductor of the Spirit Train that Sen boards? What are her fellow passengers?

**Disclaimer:** I don't own either.

**NB:** Please note that the first chapter was written half a year ago.  My writing has changed some since then, so if the two chapters don't flow well together I apologize.  Also, both chapters are self-beta'ed.

* * *

 

Sen – no, Chihiro – leaves the World of the Bathhouse and Spirits with a sense of relief, regret, anticipation, and a vague sense of contentment. She leaves with a smile on her face, a handmade hair tie in her hair, and a firm sense of herself. She leaves behind the bratty girl who, as her parents did say, whined and was a crybaby.

Ahead of her, her parents begin shouting.

“What! Our car’s all covered in branches and leaves!”

“No!  I bet some punks set this up as a prank!” Quickly, they begin to brush off the worst of the offending leaves and branches.

“Dear, do you think we’ve missed the movers?”

“Well, I hope not. This is probably just a prank by some local kids – it’s a welcoming party from the kids!  Chihiro, look!  I’m sure you’ll make plenty of friends, don’t worry.”

“Dear! You don’t want Chihiro running around with delinquents!”

“Nonsense, kids will be kids and then they’ll grow up and be responsible.  It’s best to let them get it out now – saves a lot of time and money later in life.”

Her mother’s response washes over her, like the tide that came so suddenly that first day and trapped her in the Spirit World.  Her father’s deeper reply intersperses her mother’s, like the rocks that broke the first wave, but just as surely kept her there against her will that first night.

“Come one, Chihiro! You’re not still afraid, are you?”

“Don’t worry – you’ll do fine at the new school!  And don’t you want to see the new house?”

She digs her nails into her hand and straightens her spine.  She survived Yubaba’s bathhouse and made a lot of friends.  School shouldn’t be nearly that hard.

So, she hurries over, out from the shadow of the first (the last) clock tower, and shouts, “I’m ready!  Let’s go!”

Her parents exchange a perplexed look of ‘ _is that really our daughter?’_ before laughing and climbing in themselves.

Settling back into the seat amongst the various bits of their former home they thought they couldn’t leave to the movers, Sen – _Chihiro_ – stifles a giggle. Now that she doesn’t have to worry about her parents being eaten, or something worse, there’s something hysterically funny about her parents being turned into _pigs_. If her mom ever remembers (because it’s obvious that her parents _don’t_ and thank goodness for that), she’d be horrified.

Sen – _Chihiro!_ – does not have a slight fit of hysterics in the back seat of her parent’s car as they drive away from an entrance to the Spirit World that stole a part of their lives from them.  She doesn’t. She doesn’t, because if she does she’s actually going to have a complete breakdown and that’s not going to help anyone, least of all her.

Even if going to see a therapist for some mental trauma, like _seeing your parents as pigs and fearing for their lives_ , or a couple near death experiences, who’s going to believe her?  They’ll probably just lock her up, and she won’t let that happen.  No one’s ever going to put her somewhere she doesn’t want to be, never again.

She makes a mental note, through her mess of thoughts and feelings, to ask her parents to sign her up for some martial arts lessons. If magic can’t be learned in this world, she’ll have the next best thing.

Her parents just look at her a bit oddly for laughing about pigs and bacon and frogs, but they just passed an odd sign for pigs, so they don’t give it too much thought.

Chihiro has always had an odd sense of humor for a child.

Still laughing, Sen’s – _Chihiro’s_ – hair band flashes in the light, and slowly Sen – _Chihiro_ – lets herself calm.  Her friends haven’t abandoned her, and she won’t let what she learned go to waste.  Not the cleaning, not the cooking.  Not the lessons in humility and respect.  No, the ones she learned when she helped the polluted River Spirit and when she went to return Zeniba’s seal.  The ones that her friends helped her find in her own heart, mind, and soul.

Giggles tapering off, Sen – _Chihiro_ – takes one last deep breath and releases it.

_Alright_ , she says to the sky in the dusty window _, I can do this._

~IiI~

School, Sen finds, is remarkably similar to Yubaba’s bathhouse.

There are the cleaning girls who cluster and gossip but aren’t much trouble unless you annoy the whole group. There are the toads (or they might have been frogs…she mentally shrugs and decides that it’s not going to matter all that much at this point) who are always lurking and adding opinions that no one wants.  There are the serving girls, who brought the food, the greeters, the dispensers of tokens, the guests (some particularly cute younger children are remarkable like those large chicks that loved to soak).

Even the principal, for all that he is a forty-something man, reminds her of Yubaba.

So school is similar and boring and new and comforting….

But it also hurts to be there, around all those people who might have known her somewhere else, in some other time.

So, even as Sen – _Chihiro_ – makes friends, she retreats.  It’s lonely, being in middle school and being so far apart from these other humans who should have been her peers.

(The Spirit World, for all that her power is divided now, is a greedy mistress – once she’s touched your soul, there’s no chance of returning to your ordinary life.  Something, _her_ , is always missing.)

~IiI~

Every Sunday, Sen/Chihiro uses most of her free day to trek out into the forest that surrounds the town.  She wakes at six, rubs the sleep from her eyes and practically bounces out the door, leaving a note on the kitchen table when she grabs her lunch.  Sundays make the week worthwhile.

She takes her time, wandering around the quiet streets, peering into different places that might, just maybe, be another entrance to the world for which she longs.  No one understands her here, when she laughs at frogs, and whispers to the wind about roasted newts and giant friendly daikon spirits.

To be fair, she hasn’t really tried.

To be fair, none of her friends would believe her.

So she wanders.  Up at the lonely train stop that doesn’t require her to walk the tracks or swim through an ocean, she stands as the sole passenger from this small town. It’s cold behind her and on her shoulders, and she shivers when the wind blows through.  It doesn’t matter that it’s mid-July and by all rights she should be baking.

The first train passes her by. It’s empty, on it’s way to another station after a different early morning run.  If she lets her eyes flutter, the shadows inside almost look like those people, those shades, that took that same train with her.

_Where were they going?_

Maybe she’ll never know.

~IiI~

She wanders more in the forests, but here at least she has company.  The little stone houses for the various spirits, many of which have fallen into disrepair from the erasure of memory or natural disasters, still offer shelter to those spirits that dwell in the human realm.  While the larger spirits might not fit, young kitsune (1), tanuki (2), leaf sprites and sapling spirits dwell in these small homes temporarily, usually after something has destroyed their own home or as a hotel of sorts.

Sen/Chihiro has no problem working with these creatures, exchanging work for news from the Bathhouse.

“Yes, Kama-ji is still working those soot sprites hard, yes he is!  Still calls them lazy for all that he seems to like them.  Even gave some of the slower ones some konpeito (3) the other day when they missed most of what Lin gave them.”

“Really?  Wow…. Do you know which ones?”  Sen (she’s really Sen around these creatures – she leant the lesson of giving her real name out when Yubaba had her sign that contract) mumbles around the brush she’s holding in her mouth.

The little kitsune, unfortunately named Chibisuke (4), shrugs.  “Nope. They’re always switching their names, so it’s pretty pointless to say.”

“Mm, okay.”  She hopes the little Em-be-r triplets we’re the ones.  They’re always messing around and trying to get out of work.

Standing and brushing the dirt and leaves from her pants, Sen glances over to her small companion and removes the brush from her mouth.

“Alright.  Here’s your personally painted new home, Chibisuke-kun.”

“Awesome!  Thanks, Sen-san!”

“No problem.  Send me another note if you need anything else.  And thanks for the news!”

The small tanuki bobs his head, give her a quick hug, and bounces off into his redecorated home.

~IiI~

High school is much of the same, although her weekend time to help out the local spirits shrinks some – exams and tests don’t study for themselves.  Her spirit friends are sweet, though, and give her their own gifts for good luck and success.

Some might work better than others, but she appreciates every single gift.

The best one was when she had her college exams and one of the kitsune kits made a trip to the bathhouse and came back with some konpeito, some bits of gold, a few silvery scales, a few feathers, a card that says “chu <3” and another that says “good luck!  You’re not a dope.”

“Thank you,” she says through her sniffles and tears.

The kit blushes and offers her a handkerchief.

She takes the offering, blows her nose and cuddles the kit into a hug, resolving to make inari-zushi (5) for the blushing kit next weekend.

Her friends, old and new, are the best.

~IiI~

She thinks of the gold during her science exam, the scales during literature, the konpeito during Japanese, the cards during English, and the feathers during math.

She can’t take the tokens with her, but they’re there nonetheless.

~IiI~

Chihiro should have been celebrating her entrance into Keio.  She should have been with her high school friends, who are at a karaoke bar and having the time of their lives.

She is, too.  Except, her party had foxfire and the drums of tanuki and the whispering chorus of the forest.

“Thank you all!  I couldn’t have done it without your charms and well wishes.”

“Hooray for Sen!”

“Yay, Sen!”

“Sen, come back and visit!”

“Visit!  Visit!”

“Of course I’ll visit!”

The party lasts into the next morning.

Except, instead of arriving at her home, Sen enters Soul Society.

~IiI~

It’s a morning rush for the trains and Chihiro is too tired to pay much attention to those around her.  Everyone is dressed in some shade of black, grey, or navy with accents of white from crisp business shirts beneath the blazers.

_I wish I’d slept more last night_ ….

And while that thought is tripping around in her head, someone shoves a bit too hard and she goes tripping herself, too tired to catch herself before she’s past the yellow tiles and over the edge of the platform.

_Oh…._

~IiI~

Someone dressed in black is there to greet her, prevent her from panicking too much, and presses the hilt of their sword against her forehead so she’s moving again.

In her ears, there the rush of water over a large grassy hill that has the rocks for a dried up stream that never made it to reality in the human world.  But she doesn’t see this.  Instead, everything is dark until it’s not, light making her vision redden as she tries to see through closed eyelids.

She opens them to disappointment.

It’s not an old amusement park, or a bathhouse, or a train, or a small house at the stop called ‘Swamp bottom.’

It’s just a street with other people.

Sen cries.

~IiI~

Her niche is storytelling.  The little ones come to listen, the older ones, too, to find a break from the monotony of their lives (what do you aim for when you’re dead? What is your ambition when those who will succeed are born with their power?).

“Once there was a young girl. She wasn’t pretty or strong or smart, but she did manage to go on an adventure that changed her world….”

“Under the tallest pine in the forest of Kamakura….”

“The school girls were so happy to have to chance to go to Kyōto….”

She tells of her life in snippets and earns her food from them, one life into the next.

~IiI~

Chihiro definitely doesn’t start anti-shinigami entitlement propaganda when she sees some black robes beating up a kid for stealing.

She doesn’t.

It’s not in response to the abuse the shinigami who patrol heap upon them if some of the antagonists in her stories become clad in black and wield swords with odd attacks.  Lots of other stories have them and she can’t keep telling the same ones year after year.  People might lose their memories when they come to Soul Society, but they don’t keep losing them once they’re here.

Some of the higher ranks, who try and slip into the outer districts for sake, disguising themselves as travelers or what have you and give out food and spend money, give her a smirk when she tells those stories of the Black Robes.

Okay, so some of the Black Robes are actually traitors and help the innocent and poor in her stories now, that’s fine. Not all the yōkai were evil either.

~IiI~

Years pass, and one of the black robed (“Storyteller, they’re called shinigami.”  “I know, but ‘Black Robes’ are so much more dramatic.”  “Haha, if you say so….”) comes to her district and stares at her awhile before barging through the crowd and shepherding her off to school – this _Shinigami Academy_.

Yeah, like heck is she staying there.

~IiI~

Somebody tells her that bucking the system is just like the Lost Demonic Hero of Soul Society.

Obviously, someone needs to work on their naming skills.

“Why?” She asks.  There’s a story there and her own are getting boring.

Her fellow black robe shrugs. “Dunno. that’s just what the stories say about him.  He was always doing things his way until he broke away.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Broke away or contained, perhaps that’s a better question and a lesson in itself.  The Central 46, and even the rest of the shinigami dislike change with a burning passion that sometimes looks like grief on Kuchiki-fukutaicho and Abarai-taicho.

Whatever, she’ll do things her way and see what comes of it.

The years in Soul Society have taught her steel and patience and exasperation. She’s had determination for years. It’s the best time to make use of them.

* * *

The End.

* * *

 

I hope you enjoyed this story.

Review?

~Fini~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Kitsune – foxes, connotation of trickster spirits, shape shifters  
> 2) Tanuki – lit. raccon dog, also tricksters, shape shifters, are known to use their prominent bellies as drums  
> 3) Konpeito – the little star-like candies the soot sprites eat, pure rock sugar  
> 4) Chibisuke – lit. shorty/short stuff, usually a nickname (like in Prince of Tennis)  
> 5) Inari-zushi – fried tofu pockets wrapped around sushi rice. Foxes are thought to like them because of Inari.

**Author's Note:**

> (1) yōkai – creatures from Japanese folk tales, typically with some “monstrous” countenance, and generally intertwined with daily life. Depending on the source, they can be anything from helpful and benevolent to terrifying and incredibly destructive and hateful.  
> (2) Sekkokuboku – Snowberry, according to Google translate. Hey, if Ichigo is Strawberry, Shiro can be Snowberry. Apologies if someone else had the same idea.  
> (3) Nopperabo – the Japanese name for the yōkai, translated as No-Face  
> (4) Shinigami – Death God, Soul Reaper  
> (5) Lantern – I don’t know what its technical name is so it is Lantern.


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